The Quarterback (The Team, #2)

by Tal Bauer

He looked soft, warm, and comfortable. Like the word home turned into a person.

Deep into the drive back home, Colton slowed the truck to a stop in the middle of the farm-to-market road and checked his mirrors. No one was around, and he’d been alone on the road for half an hour. He flicked off his headlights and interior lights, and pearl moonlight suddenly swam through the waves of summer grass, turning the waist-high prairie into a silver sea. Iridescence glowed off the asphalt, and starlight dipped in and out of Nick’s features, painting his lips and his forehead and the spray of his eyelashes on his cheeks in secret shades of colors Colton couldn’t name. I love you. He tested the words in his mind. “I love you,” he whispered. The moon didn’t fall, and the grasses didn’t wither, and Nick didn’t wake up. He didn’t stare at Colton and curl his lip, sneer at him, demand to be let out of the truck. “I love you,” he whispered again, this time to Nick’s hand as he kissed the bend of his thumb. He rolled Nick’s hand carefully, then planted a kiss on Nick’s ring finger. One day, I hope. He held Nick’s hand and listened to his lover’s steady, gentle breathing for the rest of the moon-drenched drive.

hooooo my gaawd

He only wanted to be loved, and cherished, and needed by one person in the world. And he was.

“Take care of him, okay?” “I will. I always will.” “And he’ll always take care of you. You’re his forever, Colton. Everyone can see it.”